Max Schloessinger, Ph.D.

MENAHEM BEN JACOB BEN SOLOMON BEN SIMSON –
German synagogal poet; died at Worms April 16, 1203. He was a member of an old family of Jewish scholars connected with that city. His great-grandfather Simson, who was living in Worms at the time of the First Crusade and was...

MENAHEM BEN JOSEPH OF TROYES –
Liturgical compiler; lived at Troyes in the thirteenth century, succeeding his father, Joseph Ḥazzan ben Judah, as ḥazzan. The Jewish liturgy is indebted to him for collecting the order of prayers which was used in the community...

MOHILEWER, SAMUEL –
Favors Palestine Colonization. Russian rabbi and Zionist; born in Hluboka, government of Wilna, April 25, 1824; died in Byelostok June 10, 1898. His father, Judah Löb, educated him not only in Hebrew, but also in secular...

MÖLLN (MOLIN) –
Name of a family of Mayence. The name , which, according to D. Kaufmann ("Der Grabstein des R. Jacob ben Moses ha-Levi," in "Monatsschrift," xlii. 26), is to be read "Molin" rather than "Mölln," is not intended to indicate the...

MORDECAI BEN JEHIEL (MICHAEL HA-LEVI) –
Russian grammarian and ab bet din of Slawatyetz-on-the-Bug; lived at the beginning of the eighteenth century. He wrote "Mera Dakya" (Frankfort-on-the-Oder, 1734, and often reprinted), a grammatical commentary on Rashi's...

MOROCCO –
Traditions of Early Settlement. Sultanate in northwestern Africa. In antiquity it formed a considerable part of Mauritania. The latter was originally an independent kingdom, but in the year 42 of the common era it was made a...

MOSES, CHILDREN OF –
In Babylon. The legendary descendants of Moses who dwell beyond the mythical River Sambaṭion. The pathetic conception of the Jewish exiles weeping by the waters of Babylon, and refusing to sing the songs of Zion in a strange...

MOSES OF ARLES –
French scholar of the second half of the tenth century. Moses is the earliest scholar of the city of Arles of whom there is any definite knowledge. The only writing of his that has been preserved is on a halakic question...

MOSES BEN DANIEL OF ROHATYN –
Galician author of the end of the seventeenth century. He was the author of "Sugyot ha-Talmud," a methodology of the Talmud and its commentaries (Zolkiev, 1693). According to the preface, the author was a resident of Zolkiev,...

MOSES HA-DARSHAN –
French exegete; lived at Narbonne about the middle of the eleventh century. According to a manuscript in the possession of the Alliance Israélite Universelle containing those parts of Abraham Zacuto's "Sefer Yuḥasin" that are...

MOSES BEN JACOB OF COUCY (SeMaG) –
Travels in Spain. Page from the First Edition of the "Semag," Rome (?) Before 1480.(From the Sulzberger collection in the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, New York.)French tosafist and codifier; lived in the first half of...

MOSES (MESHARSHEYA) KAHANA BEN JACOB –
Gaon of Sura from 832 to 843; son of the gaon (801-815) Jacob ha-Kohen ben Mordecai. Moses is reputed to have been a student of the Cabala and to have used amulets, charms, etc. (Hai ben Sherira, "Ṭa'am Zeḳenim," p. 566)....

MOSES KALFO –
Italian scholar; lived at the beginning of the eleventh century at Bari, where he taught at the yeshibah. He is known through lexicographical explanations cited by Nathan ben Jehiel, author of the "'Aruk" (s.v. , , and ). Nathan...

MOṬOṬ, SAMUEL BEN SA'ADIAS IBN –
Spanish commentator and translator; lived in the second half of the fourteenth century in Guadalajara, where he probably was born. The spelling of the name, or , is uncertain. Wolf ("Bibl. Hebr." iii. 1113) is uncertain whether...

MOṬOṬ, SIMEON BEN MOSES BEN SIMEON –
Jewish mathematician of the fifteenth century; probably lived in Lombardy. No Jewish author mentions him, nor is anything known of his life. That he lived in the middle of the fifteenth century has been concluded from the fact...

NASI, JOSEPH, DUKE OF NAXOS –
Banker at Antwerp. Turkish statesman and financier; born in Portugal at the beginning of the sixteenth century; died at Constantinople Aug. 2, 1579. His father, a younger brother of Francisco and Diogo Nasi-Mendez, and a member...

NISSIM BEN JACOB BEN NISSIM IBN SHAHIN –
African Talmud exegete and moralist; lived during the first half of the eleventh century in Kairwan. He received his early instruction from his father, Jacob ben Nissim, president of the yeshibah of Kairwan. After Ḥushiel ben...

SAHL –
Physician, astrologer, and mathematician of the ninth century (c. 786-845 ?); father of the physician Ali ben Sahl. Sahl translated the "Almagest" of Ptolemy. Steinschneider identifies him with the celebrated Sahl ibn Bishr...

SAMUEL BEN ḤOFNI –
Last gaon of Sura; died in 1034. His father was a Talmudic scholar and chief judge ("ab bet din," probably of Fez), one of whose responsa is extant (see Zunz, "Ritus," p. 191; Steinschneider, "Hebr. Bibl." xx. 132), and on whose...

YEHUDAI BEN NAḤMAN –
Gaon of Sura from 760 to 764. After the office of the gaonate was left vacant by the death of Mar Aḥa, the exilarch Solomon, departing from the usual custom, decided to appoint a scholar of the Pumbedita Academy, Yehudai ben...

ZECHARIAH IBN SA'ID AL-YAMANI –
Author of an Arabic version of the "Yosippon"; flourished in the tenth or eleventh century. His version exists in three recensions: (1) in several manuscripts which yet await thorough examination; (2) an abbreviated text printed...